Page 56

And I did.

And before this story moves any further, let me say something about this dog. He isn't going to do anything in this book.

He won't save a drowning baby, or rush into a burning building to rouse the inhabitants from near-fatal sleep. He isn't possessed by an evil spirit; he isn't a vampire dog. He's in this narrative simply because I found him in the snow behind that town house in Georgetown, and I loved him, and from that first moment, he seemed somehow to love me. It was all too true to the blind and merciless laws I believe in-the laws of nature, as men say; or the laws of the Savage Garden, as I call them myself. Mojo loved my strength; I loved his beauty. And nothing else ever really mattered at all.